Another breach in ANC-led alliance

Another Cosatu union has broken ranks, but not quite fully, with the ANC-led tripartite alliance. After a three-day special congress in Cape Town, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) resolved not to insist that its members vote for the ANC. However, although Fawu members may decide which political party to support, the union leadership will still encourage a vote for the ANC.

“We have done so in the absence of any alternative, so as to deny the opportunistic and right-wing parties from gaining strength,” says Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola. However, the union’s congress also supported the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) claim that the tripartite alliance was now “non-functional” and that the unions were being used merely as “election fodder”.

Fawu is now demanding that COSATU must fight for a “re-configured Alliance arrangement”. And Masemola points out that future support for the ANC will depend on the party supporting “working class interests”.